Just, you know, recipes and that.

Celeriac – because you’re worth it.

Summer is full of photoshoot-perfect food, isn’t it? All those beautiful mediterranean vegetables – glossy black aubergines, little red cherry tomato jewels, verdant green peppers – all polished and shiny, all bursting with the healthy good looks of something developed at the Laboratoire Garnier.

Now we’re moving into the autumn its almost a relief to see the imperfect, knobbly fruits of harvest festival season. There’s a rustic, back-to-school charm to the root vegetables, the squash, pumpkin and gourd. And I’m always pleased to see the scruffy, turnipy-looking celeriac. It’s a funny fellow, the celeriac, looks totally alien but tastes fresh and delicious especially when grated finely in the starring role of a celeriac remoulade. In the recipe below I mixed a little freshly grated horseradish (again, no beauty but provides amazing taste and mustardy heat) into the mixture and served it for lunch with some good sourdough, a handful of rocket and a peppered mackerel fillet – see photo above.

No retouching required.

Celeriac remoulade

Half a celeriac – washed, peeled and finely grated.

3 tablespoons of creme fraiche

1 tablespoon of grain mustard

An inch of peeled and finely grated horseradish

Just mix all of the above together and season to taste. This is enough for 2 good dollops for a mackerel lunch and a little leftover for ham sandwiches the next day.